What drives sponsorship effectiveness? An examination of the roles of brand community identification, brand authenticity, and sponsor–club congruence

Abstract

This research examines the influence of brand community identification (BCI) on three measures of sponsorship effectiveness-brand advocacy, purchase intention, and sponsor-brand choice. Additionally, we investigate the psychological mechanism and the moderators between BCI and sponsorship outcomes. We collected data from members of two brand communities, across four experiments (2 × 2 betweensubject designs), during soccer league events. Our findings demonstrate that BCI increased brand advocacy and purchase intention. It shows a novel psychological mechanism (brand community engagement) between BCI and brand advocacy; both brand authenticity and sponsor-club congruence serve as boundary conditions.Counter-intuitively, our study revealed that both high-congruent and low-congruent sponsor brands could be effective, depending on consumers' identification with the brand community. Our research makes several meaningful theoretical and practical contributions. Sports clubs and sponsors must cultivate consumers' identification with the club's brand community, which offers two-fold benefits; it leads to greater effectiveness, measured in terms of club brand engagement and sponsor-brand advocacy. Moreover, our research demonstrates that consumers, regardless of their identification with the brand community, will stop supporting a sponsor brand if they perceive it as less authentic.

How does self-congruity foster customer engagement with global brands? Examining the roles of psychological ownership and global connectedness

“…(2011), participants were asked to think about the kind of person who is a typical user of this brand. The brand recall to invoke the favorite global brand and the subsequent thought of a typical brand user helped the respondents retrieve their favorite brand-related information and experiences from their memory, capturing participants' cognitive responses toward the global brand (Moharana et al. , 2023).…”

“…Subsequent to recall of their favorite global brand, following Mal€ ar et al (2011), participants were asked to think about the kind of person who is a typical user of this brand. The brand recall to invoke the favorite global brand and the subsequent thought of a typical brand user helped the respondents retrieve their favorite brand-related information and experiences from their memory, capturing participants' cognitive responses toward the global brand (Moharana et al, 2023). Next, they were asked to respond to actual, ideal and social self-congruity scale items adapted from Sirgy et al (1997) and Mal€ ar et al (2011).…”

“…Specifically, our research demonstrates that social self-congruity has the greatest impact in the US context. Therefore, marketers in developed countries may benefit by developing advertisements that promote social dynamics, such as fostering brand communities to enhance customer engagement (Moharana et al, 2023). Actual selfcongruity influences engagement with global brands in both the USA and India.…”

“…Accordingly, we suggest that marketers of global brands may employ advertising messages or develop taglines such as “my brand”, “this brand is mine” to foster customer psychological ownership and engagement with the brand. Additionally, marketers can develop brand communities because consumers' investment of self in brand communities could engender self-expression and eventually help enhance brand psychological ownership (Moharana et al. , 2023).…”

Examining process mechanism of celebrity attributes on brand advocacy

“…According to social identity theory (Tajfel and Turner, 1979), people's perceptions about themselves are shaped by how they connect in their social circles. And this construction and expression of social identities can also be facilitated by brands (Moharana et al, 2023). Hence, consumers often use a brand to attain their fundamental identities (Lam et al, 2013;Stokburger-Sauer et al, 2012) and to define "who they are" (Roy Bhattacharjee et al, 2021).…”